Cathie from Canada

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Blog, blog against the dying of the light"

Friday, August 04, 2006

I guess Iran won, and without firing a shot

Tonight on Countdown, I finally heard an American media outlet give a straight story about what has happened in Iraq.And the news is, Iran won.It was Olbermann who said it. The transcript hasn't been posted yet so I cannot quote directly, but here is the summary from my memory:

The Bush administration and the American neocons were sold a bill of goods about Iraq by their so-called friend Ahmed Chalabi. They thought they were going to gallop into Baghdad in 2003 and watch Iraqis install Chalabi as Prime Minister. Now it has become apparent that Chalabi was working for Iran all along. So Iran tricked America into taking out Saddam, thus allowing Iraq to become a Shiite Muslim nation and new Iranian ally.

. . . Galbraith further argues that the invasion of Iraq destabilized the Middle East while inadvertently strengthening Iran. One of the administration's intentions in invading Iraq was to undermine Iran, but instead, the Iraqi occupation has given Tehran one of its greatest strategic triumphs in the last four centuries.Once considered to be Iraq’s worst enemy, Iran has now created, financed and armed the Shiite Islamic movements within southern Iraq. Since the Iraqi Parliamentary elections of 2005, the Shiites have made considerable political gains and now have substantial influence over the country’s U.S.-created military, its police, and the central government in Baghdad. In addition, Iraq is developing economic ties with Iran that Galbraith believes could soon link the two countries’ strategic oil supplies.Galbraith says that, “thanks to George W. Bush, Iran today has no closer ally in the world than the Iraq of the Ayatollahs.” As a result, he argues, sending U.S. forces into Iraq, has in effect, made them hostage to Iran and its Iraqi Shiite allies and left the U.S. without a viable military option to halt Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

This story also notes that Bush didn't know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni Muslim a month before the Iraq invasion. Well, neither did I, of course, but then I'm not the President of the United States....